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Has social media ruined society?

Robsweezie

it could be said that it's the users behind social media and not the media itself that's the problem.

but do you think its gone too far to the point where we've lost all concept of privacy? to me facebook has become somewhat of a glorified tabloid newspaper, fueling gossip and speculation about each other's lives, what we're doing, who we're with. it can be so dangerous . do you agree with people splashing their newborns, baby scans and other personal stuff all over the likes of facebook? have you accepted that facebook etc. has just become an extension of our lives? if you've left facebook, why? i feel like we live too much of our lives through these sites, so much so that we lose what it means to live in the moment. i think facebook has become a people pleasing exercise and a platform for attention seeking, and that's coming from an active user, yet you could say attention seeking is the very nature of facebook.

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Cantremember

I eat clocks.

dublinman1990

bucketybuck wrote: »

Forget Facebook, the biggest crime in modern society is that you will see so-called serious news outlets actually devote segments to reading out what random people are saying on Twitter. Absolutely ****ing ridiculous.

Can you imagine that 20 years ago? "Shocking news there about the president, here's what Jim from down the pub had to say about it..."

Funny you should mention that btw!

Tubs just did a segment on reading people's tweet's on the LLS tonight. The rest of us in our LLS thread thought it was pathetic and slighty ironic since Tubs left Twitter years ago.

Oh Thank goodness I don't have Twitter to endure that crap.

ArnoldJRimmer

There was a study lately which revealed that more people felt inadequate because their friends on FB had such exciting lives in comparison. This is not the fault of social media. W&nkers who wont shut up about how great their lives are (often lies) have always existed. Back in the day, it was in work, in bars, meeting someone in the supermarket that we had to put up with this. At least now, we can scroll past it or ignore it.

I'm actually a fan of social media as it allows me to keep in touch with what is going on with friends and family all over the world, but rarely post on FB apart from 'Happy birthday' or 'congrats on the baby.' Unfortunately some people dont have a filter

Daenarys

Saralee4 wrote: »

I know a couple who literally post every waking moment of their lives on it. They tell each other how much they love one another by posting on the others page, they even have had fights on it and these are over thirty. How impersonal is that? I feel like its as if they leave nothing for themselves or the real reason they tell their partner they love them is to brag or to get attention? Save it for the wedding day for god sake. I think if they didn't have Facebook they wouldn't have a relationship. The feedback they receive on Facebook gives them some validation for their relationship..

A previous colleague of mine in his 40's and his wife are the exact same acting like lovesick 14 year olds.

She would post a picture of a present he bought her or a dish he cooked and say she loved him and he would do the same back. All day everyday this sh!t went on, then they had a baby, so you can imagine how nauseating this got. "I'm so lucky to be a Dad, I love my gorgeous wife and baby" and tag her in the status update, cue more xx's and "I love you's " and "you're an amazing father, I'm so lucky you're my husband".

Anyway I unfriended him because I couldn't stomach how fake it all was. With all his public adoration and expression of love, he has been cheating on her for years, every time he travelled with work there was some bird headed up to his hotel room. Jekyll & Hyde :rolleyes:

supersean1999

I deleted over 100 off my fb. Only kept family. Close friends. And even unfollowed a good few of them because tbh family are normally the most annoying. I must admit its better. As for twitter. I dont follow anyone off my fb list..

Duggy747

I like how people always put up and share statuses of "disturbing" things like how Facebook sells their information / the government are watching their every move but then continue on posting up every little tidbit of their lives on the very platform they bang on about that invades their privacy.

Anyways, Facebook has shown me that people will believe absolutely anything if it's shared enough on it. The concept of checking sources or reading further on a subject don't go any further than "I saw it on Facebook" and that's enough for a lot of people.

the evasion_kid

Duggy747 wrote: »

I like how people always put up and share statuses of "disturbing" things like how Facebook sells their information / the government are watching their every move but then continue on posting up every little tidbit of their lives on the very platform they bang on about that invades their privacy.

Anyways, Facebook has shown me that people will believe absolutely anything if it's shared enough on it. The concept of checking sources or reading further on a subject don't go any further than "I saw it on Facebook" and that's enough for a lot of people.

There's a lot of false information on facebook,some people are incapable of critical thought

Letree

I think social media and the internet in general has given us a glimpse of just how nasty people can really be.

Anther big problem is the outrage brigade fomenting and then chasing a scandal like a shoal of fish. Where someone can be absolutely destroyed by a mob online for saying something fairly innocuous.

sinead88

I completely aagree that there is a he'll of a lot of ****e on social media. I also think though, that it hahas provided an important alternative to mainstream media. Living in the UK, I've found that the BBC and other news channels have essentially become biased party political broadcasters for right wing parties and corporate interests. I've actually come across some really interesting articles and points of view on social media, that otherwise wouldn't have been available to me. I think Twitter is probably more beneficial than Facebook in that regard. I just have to ignore thw "u ok hun" brigade!

Clankatron

cml387 wrote: »

The problem is that before Facebook you only had a vague idea about how many stupid people are out there.

The reality is appalling.

Beat me to it. Nail on head.

AulBiddy

As an 18 year old who uses Facebook on a regular basis I must say that most of the dramatics I see on Facebook are from older relatives in their late 30s. It's always my generation who would get the blame for using social media in a negative way but being honest most of my friends and other people my age never post anything on Facebook, the only reason we're still on it is because of the chat feature .
I've seen my cousin who is in her 40s rabbit on about how **** her husband is and pictures of her very sick disabled child in his hospital bed (which I think is really wrong as he has no choice in whether he wants the photo up, he is 16) etc etc ... I've unfriended some of these people and some were so upset by it that they won't talk to me in real life . I'd rather not see your marital problems or any other personal information spread like slurry for all to see on Facebook thanks very much.

my friend

SureYWouldntYa wrote: »

No dickheads ruin society

Based on your posting, we need more dickheads

TheBeardedLady

I'd say there's some negatives alright but I personally don't get the hatred for Facebook or perhaps the people I've befriended aren't annoying.

I love all the different articles, music, photos etc. posted and I've discovered a lot of interesting stuff this way. Perhaps it's a reflection of the kinds of people I know in real life - I wouldn't have much time for someone who posts OTT, dramatic Facebook statuses as they'd be like that in real life; they're simply not the kinds of people I'd know. Or perhaps it's just the age group I'm friends with.

Great way of staying in touch with my family, particularly my two siblings in the States and the two at home and my friends scattered around the world. It is what it is and you can block what you don't like.

anncoates

cml387 wrote: »

The problem is that before Facebook you only had a vague idea about how many stupid people are out there.

The reality is appalling.

It's awful that you've no way of not seeing them in Facebook, like not being friends with them or something.

Facebook need to address this.

Fukuyama

Deactivated my Facebook three years ago and was off it for around a year. One thing I noticed was that I feel out of touch with the "cool" trend of the week. Could be some celebrity video leaked or a new word like SWAG/YOLO or whatever. Was great.

Eventually I reactivated my profile so I could uses the "sign up with facebook" thing many websites have. It's pretty handy.

I normally check facebook once every three months or so. The last time I logged in I had forgotten my password it had been so long. The photo of me on my profile is at least 3 years old. The design had changed quite a bit and my newsfeed was just full of vines, clickbait and **** statuses.

The majority of people I know have kind of outgrown posting every single second of their lives like "checking in" to bars, taking group photos every two seconds and so on.

Whatsapp groups ftw!

Venus In Furs

cml387 wrote: »

The problem is that before Facebook you only had a vague idea about how many stupid people are out there.

The reality is appalling.

Yeh, although I don't mean my friends/family, but the comments to viral stuff, e.g. news stories. Fuq me, I don't know how anyone could keep their cool getting involved in those discussions.

conorhal

SilverScreen wrote: »

I'd say stupidity has ruined society. Social media is just another outlet for them but not the cause.

I'm not so sure, it spreads stupidity like a virus. The problem with on line media is that it offers stupidity a global platform when previously it merely had a local one.
It used to be the case, for example, that tin foil hat nutters sat in their basements and people thought that they were at best stupid and harmless, the internet has provided a place for the crazies to gather in numbers and create their own virtual comunities that are self-reinforcing their dilusions as they share them. Hence you get stuff like 'vaccine conspiracies' that get inexplicable global traction.

This is facilitated by the ironic narrowing rather then broadening of shared information. we used to think that the internet would educate us because it's a vast well, the sum of all human knowledge at your fingertips, however the ability of both users and companies to 'tailor media feeds' actually means that you will only ever be proffered news feed that reinforces your views based on your preferences, so your connected devices decide what it is you actually 'want to see' and thus peoples horizons narrow rather then broaden.

On top of that you have the TLDR effect. Most poeple will skip this post for example because we have what is almost a compulsive adiction to the next link on the page. This means people absorb little and skip across the surface of the net, but never into anything in depth.

Finally you have the demise of traditional print media. As rationalization occurs and foreign bureaus close, newspapers no longer have the staff or the time to do in depth investigative reporting. The media has become all about click bait as it tries to get out ahead of social media and that makes 'first' more important then accurate or sourced. So even traditional media, due to under resourcing and competition, have morphed in to shallow, unverified click bait stories and opinion pieces with no basis in fact. When pointless entities like Kim Kardashian hit the front pages of mainstream media, you know the internet is killing brain cells.

Fukuyama

conorhal wrote: »

Finally you have the demise of traditional print media. As rationalization occurs and foreign bureaus close, newspapers no longer have the staff or the time to do in depth investigative reporting. The media has become all about click bait as it tries to get out ahead of social media and this first is more important then accurate or sourced. So even traditional media due to under resourcing and competition have morphed in to shallow, unverified click bait stories and opinion pieces with no basis in fact. When pointless entities like Kim Kardashian hit the front pages of mainstream media, you know the internet is killing brain cells.

This is something I value. It may not be mainstream anymore but it can still be found. I think a subscription to long-standing, respected publications should be a must for everyone to counteract the clickbait that so often makes it to the front page of Reddit or is shared on Facebook.

Turtwig

The internet has opened a window into the shadows of society that were mostly hidden from our views. The only problem with social media is that it clumps too many of these people together that they start gaining more conviction for their own shtty ideas that they would otherwise have had. It also makes journalists lazy and incompetent. Then there's clickbaiting.

It hasn't ruined society, but I do feel it's not a benign force. Companies don't give a sht as profit their bottom line but ultimately that means stupidity wins out. Misinformation is being spread today faster than it ever was. Whether all these fractals in society can stay together will be interesting to see.

NIMAN

I am not a FB user, but from what I can see of work colleagues its mainly used as a fancy version of Beadle's About, where each day brings a new silly/amusing/touching/sick video clip and it seems that the entire world is talking about it.

Add to this the fact that you can take your lunch breaks with work colleagues who decide then to sit looking at their phone for most of the break and refuse to engage in conversation.

daukey34

my Facebook account is deactivated for nearly a year now and my life is a million times better without it , and I know loads others that say the same

DEFTLEFTHAND

NIMAN wrote: »

I am not a FB user, but from what I can see of work colleagues its mainly used as a fancy version of Beadle's About, where each day brings a new silly/amusing/touching/sick video clip and it seems that the entire world is talking about it.

Add to this the fact that you can take your lunch breaks with work colleagues who decide then to sit looking at their phone for most of the break and refuse to engage in conversation.

Ya the head stuck in the phone thing is really annoying, especially when you're out for a few with friends and they spend the night at it.

AnimalChin

daukey34 wrote: »

my Facebook account is deactivated for nearly a year now and my life is a million times better without it , and I know loads others that say the same

Jesus. That sounds like a huge overstatement.

I'm not a big fan of it. I have a FB account, but I don't use it all that much. I log in now and then to see what's up.

Yes, there are really annoying things/people on it, but that's why I don't visit it often and don't have 'friends' I wouldn't socialise with in real life on FB.

It's what you make it.

I can't imagine being effected to the extent that my life would be a million times better without it.

daukey34

depends how much you are on it , some people are so addicted to it to the point where it has a massive effect on there lives in a really negative way, that's the way it affected me , so to get away from that my life has changed so much !

TeamJesus

I never had a Facebook :O I hated Bebo as a teenager, always worried about how I looked to other people so never got a FB

There's plenty of times I think I should have set one up...

But then I think there's already so many ways that I waste my time, commuting to work, TV (don't even watch that much) that I can't really afford another time suck. As much as possible id like to try and live in the moment even if that just means paying attention to what's around me.

NIMAN

Just another thing to help dumb down the population, take their mind off real life and the issues that come with it.

TheBeardedLady

NIMAN wrote: »

Just another thing to help dumb down the population, take their mind off real life and the issues that come with it.

Actually, it's highlighted a lot of what's going on around the world for me through stuff my friends have posted.

imme

'social' media is a business after all.
Has it ruined society = over simplification, so can't be answered.

Has it changed society = of course.